The centrally located Swiss Village Resort & Spa has recently undergone renovations that have added a sparkling veneer to its traditional Asian design and western amenities.
There's a wide range of accommodation, from budget standard rooms all the way up to seafront family villas and executive family villas with private pool.
The resort has a full range of facilities for guests including a business centre, conference room, spa by the beach, a fitness centre, tennis court and a medical clinic. The smiling staff are always helpful.
The main pool has a functioning pool bar in the centre - great for a relaxing drink while you cool off in the water. There's a small children's play area on the lawn.
The wide, white sand beach plays host to Africa, the biggest kite surf school in the area.
Staying at Swiss Village offers you some peaceful and memorable moments at Mui Ne beach.
GALLERY
Pandanus Resort
Imagine Yourself in Paradise
The Pandanus Resort was built in 2004 within a 10-hectare garden on a 300-metre-long, secluded beach. The biggest resort in Phan Thiet, Pandanus is located east of the cape at Mui Ne, close to the famous red and orange Mui Ne sand dunes, and far removed from the frenetic pace of the Ham Tien-Mui Ne strip one kilometre away.
While some travellers might prefer the louder, more action-packed hotels in the Ham Tien tourist strip, Pandanus is perfect for families or couples looking to find peace and quiet. Here you’ll be sure to find a few things: beautiful, flourishing gardens; an amazing pool and beach; spacious and well-laid-out accommodations and service standards that reach international levels of quality.
All in all, the Pandanus Resort provides a good price/quality ratio away from the hustle and bustle.
Resort Layout and Accommodations
In its more than 10-year history in Phan Thiet, Pandanus has grown to be one of the most successful large resorts in the region with one of the highest occupancy rates. Why? A few reasons. First of all, the layout of the grounds.
It’s very spacious and the expansive grounds are a tick in its favour. The vast entry lobby, built with traditional Cham architecture in mind and employees a group of traditional Cham musicians, is just the start and the sense of space continues from there. The entirely wheelchair-accessible walkways will lead guests through lush, well-maintained gardens and a variety of different bungalows named after tropical flowers found in the region.
Pandanus offers six types of accommodation, from budget and superior rooms in two- and three-storey buildings through to executive apartments and private bungalows. Each room is spacious, accommodating and has every essential a guest should expect from a 4-star resort. With balconies accompanying every room and gardens flourishing throughout the resort, it’s a guarantee that no matter where your room is situated, you’ll have a glorious view.
The resort is child-friendly with child-minding services, playgrounds and a big, open field area for ball games. Just keep an eye out if they insist on tackling the traditional Vietnamese "monkey bridge" over the pond.
Beach, Pool, Spa and Sports
Pool and Beach
Adjacent to the quiet beach – the cleanest and widest in the area – is a huge, free-form pool that surrounds an island covered with palm trees. The largest pool in Phan Thiet, it features an outdoor jacuzzi and it’s deeper than most pools you’re likely to find in Vietnam. Professional masseuses offer massages on the beach, around the pool or in the luxurious spa.
With over a hundred lounge chairs circling the pool and the beach, it’s easy to stake out a few for yourself and your family wherever you’d like to spend your day. And with the pool-adjacent Sun Terrace Restaurant taking orders for drinks and light lunches from 1:00 p.m. to 4 p.m. daily, you’ll really have no reason to leave.
Spa
The spa at Pandanus Resort offers a wide variety of treatments and probably has whatever you’re looking for. Open from 9:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m., the spa features massages, facials, skin care treatments along with a steam room and saunas.
Appointments can be made daily starting at 8:00 a.m., and it should be noted that appointments must be made to use the sauna and steam room as well. While this might be a slight inconvenience for vacationers used to popping into the steam room without notice, it’s really a testament to just how busy the spa is at Pandanus.
Sports and Fitness
If you’ve explored the surrounding dunes of Mui Ne and want to exercise on the resort instead, there are plenty of options for you to choose from. First of all, there’s the fitness room, which features both workout machines (treadmills, ellipticals, recumbent bikes, etc.) and weightlifting stations.
Along with the fitness centre, Pandanus Resort gives guests the ability to use a variety of well-maintained sports courts and fields. If tennis is your game, there’s a court available during daylight hours, and balls and rackets are complimentary. For the volleyball enthusiasts, there are two courts available: one on grass and one on the beach. Pandanus also houses a badminton court, football field, basketball court and petanque court.
Available Services
What we love about Pandanus is the way that the resort goes above and beyond for its guests. For example, there’s the wide abundance of services on offer, and some of them are complimentary.
Free tai chi and yoga classes are offered (previous experience isn’t necessary for either) as well as a free introductory walking tour of the Mui Ne fishing village every morning.
All of this stems from the General Manager’s goal of making sure every guest has a good time. And if a guest has a comment, concern or question, they can ask the GM directly at the nightly wine and cheese reception at the Sun Terrace Restaurant.
GALLERY
Joe's Cafe and Garden Resort
Joe's Cafe and Garden Resort is the premier live music venue in Mui Ne and the only place that stays busy every night in the low season. Joe's boutique seaside resort holds elegant bungalows with plush sofas and hammocks on the porch where one can drink Bobby Brewers Coffee and enjoy our famous homemade cheesecake. You can even dine in our pool! The bungalows are quiet however, the four budget rooms next to the cafe are more boisterous.
GALLERY
Cham Villas
This is a boutique luxury resort run by a German/Vietnamese couple that envelops its visitors in a world removed from everything else. Intimacy and privacy are key here, and all 21 villas have been arranged so that each is hidden from the others. The rooms themselves, with thatched roofs and open bathrooms, are meticulously clean, and the attention to detail is outstanding. Cham-style statuettes and paraphernalia adorn the beautifully maintained, lush gardens. The restaurant serves Vietnamese and western food at reasonable prices, and overlooks the stunning pool. The beach bar serves small snacks. The Ratinger Löwe restaurant next door is claimed by some to be the best German restaurant in Vietnam. Cham Villas was selected as ‘Vietnam’s finest hotel 2009’ by the Vietnam Travel website.
GALLERY
Sea Lion Beach Resort & Spa
Sea Lion Beach Resort and Spa stretches out along 150 metres of white sand and has 253 rooms and bungalows set in four hectares of gardens. The four-star resort is a mix of traditional Vietnamese elegance and French colonial style and the rooms echo this perfectly. Ideal for families as well as groups, facilities include two restaurants, two bars, a conference room, two meeting rooms, two swimming pools, a gym and a spa.
Most visitors to Hoang Ngoc (Oriental Pearl) Resort are repeat guests looking for a retreat from their daily lives. It is one of the oldest resorts in the area, and its mature trees and plants provide a very pleasant garden setting.
With good facilities and activities for all the family, the resort offers one of the best quality-to-price ratios in its category. Rooms have beach, garden or swimming pool views. Unfortunately the beach here has been washed away, but the pleasant environment more than makes up for this and you can still take to the water.
The affordable restaurant offers international as well as Vietnamese cuisine. With daily drink specials, the bar is a great place for sundowners. It is also one of the few resorts to offer meeting and banquet facilities.
